Industries get varied treatments

September 20, 2013

If you want to open a coal mine or drill an oil well in an area where certain types of rare fish or other endangered wildlife live, be prepared to be told you will have to change your plans. There are government regulations to safeguard some endangered species, after all, and that is obviously a good thing.

Among the protected species are bald and golden eagles. Rest assured, if the coal mining industry was responsible for killing a significant number of the birds, the fines and penalties would be harsh, and the war on the coal industry would be ratcheted up even more if that's possible by the federal government.

At least 67 golden and bald eagles have been killed by wind energy facilities during the past five years, according to a new study by government biologists. No doubt the figure is vastly higher than that, but the biologists were able to count only those eagle deaths reported by wind energy companies. Their study excluded what the Associated Press called "the deadliest place in the country for eagles," an area of California wind farms that kills more than 60 of the birds each year.

Killing golden and bald eagles is a violation of federal law. Yet the Obama administration has not enforced it against wind farm companies. They have been neither prosecuted nor fined.

That should not be surprising.

In virtually every way it is possible to be hypocritical, Obama and his minions have been so in promoting wind and solar energy and trying to destroy the coal industry.

Under Obama, then, the law is the law and must be followed - unless it becomes too inconvenient for special interests he favors.